Revolutionized Switching For Modern Mobility, Cloud and IoT

As if mobile-first workplaces and cloud-based apps weren’t changing network traffic patterns and utilization enough, the surging interest in Internet of Things (IoT) devices likely has your business units clamoring to gain advantages from a rapidly-expanding list of connected technologies.

Whether it’s smart conference rooms, connected security cameras or physical asset tracking solutions, Gartner estimates the number of connected “things” is on pace to hit 20 billion in the next three years. Couple this exponential growth in different types, and form factors, of mobile computing devices – along with a widening array of data sources – and it’s no wonder you’re beginning to lose sleep at night.

After all, providing the reliable and resilient campus networks necessary to support the connection, device and data blitz requires either hiring considerably more IT staff or investing in significantly more intelligent networking gear.

Bringing Business Agility Into the Core

For those interested in the intelligence route, today we’re announcing a solution that applies the same innovative software-based approach our customers already depend on for streamlined Wi-Fi. This means we’ve completely modernized switching to extend the same automation, analytics and policy-based administration from the edge all the way into the campus core.

The new Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series is a core and aggregation game-changer beyond it’s hardware capabilities. It also introduces the industry’s most advanced switch operating system, the ArubaOS-CX, which acts as the 8400’s brains to supply the agility needed for efficiently and effectively supporting your enterprise’s next-generation business initiatives.

Addressing Mobile-First and IoT Challenges

Across the industry spectrum we consistently heard IT departments struggling to address three trends related to a line of business expectations:

Mobile & Cloud – With business users requesting more cloud-based apps, and then accessing them on various device types, it creates networking complexity in terms of data prioritization, segmentation, and troubleshooting. For example, Skype for Business video traffic and Oracle month-end reports require a higher priority than other activities.

IoT – In addition to the explosion in IoT device types and the business challenges they address, IoT devices also add management complexity due to their varied connection protocols, divergent traffic patterns and, in most cases, insufficient security stacks. In other words, a spike in traffic by a specific IoT device could be either normal or concerning. Multiply that by thousands, or tens of thousands, of IoT connections and the enormity of the investigative task, becomes clear.

Expanding Data Sources – The more types of mobile devices, cloud applications and IoT gear, the greater the sources and amount of data generated. Finding the relevant bits of information among the deluge, and visualizing how that information correlates with other data and events on the network, is simply beyond manual human capabilities.

Intelligent Platform Meets Your Modern Needs

By replacing the outdated switching paradigm with a modern platform, the 8400 Switch Series with ArubaOS-CX can help our customers address all of these challenges. Business-enabling innovations include:

Network Analytics Engine for Automated, Granular Visibility.

Born in the era of mobile, cloud and IoT, our solution offers the revolutionary Aruba Network Analytics Engine. This intelligence layer simplifies network, system, application and security-related activity monitoring. It enables operators to detect problems in real time, analyze trends to quickly gain insights and predict – or avoid – issues that often lead to scale, security and performance bottlenecks.

Effective Troubleshooting for Fast Remediation & Improved Security.

The existing switching model for detecting network issues relies on users to identify a problem and report it to IT, leading to remediation delays that impact overall enterprise productivity. For example, when business users experience a dropped session during a web conferencing call, they can’t notify the networking team until after the fact. Meanwhile, other users are also affected.

Our solution automatically detects traffic anomalies related to events – such as dropped calls or potential network attacks – and begins collecting additional data from the switch. In addition, data from various sources is correlated, enabling an operator to see that a configuration change preceded a conference call event or that a suspicious traffic spike actually relates to normal utilization rather than an attack.

Programmability to Streamline Network Scalability.

Unique to our platform is its software-defined, API-first foundation that includes a built-in Python interpreter. Complete API’s are foundational to the architecture of ArubaOS-CX. These characteristics empower administrators with modern and flexible tools to replace antiquated, manual command line coding. Additionally, your operators can easily program more sophisticated functions, like detecting a certain sequence of events that trigger the process of collecting and correlating related information.

Policy-based Configuration & Administration.

With REST-based APIs for every switch feature, including configuration variables and statistics, you can quickly program enterprise-defined policies for streamlining operations and workflow. For example, appropriately segmenting voice and data traffic to ensure smooth experiences for both. Similarly, certain data activities can be automatically flagged to improve security.

Dashboard Customization to Meet Specific Needs.

Unlike the past, your operators can create programming and administration dashboards to fit the needs of your enterprise. Rather than using a generic dashboard, or waiting for a requested feature to be included in a new release, this capability boosts IT efficiency by placing the most relevant actions at your operators’ fingertips and enabling your staff to evolve the interface to meet new demands.

Regardless of your enterprise’s specific line of business needs, gaining early visibility and insights into your network’s connectivity and traffic patterns, as well as using analytics and policies to predict and resolve problems before they cause downtime, enables utilizing IT resources more effectively, significantly boosting business productivity and greatly reducing costs.

In short, the sooner you invest in core and aggregation intelligence and automation, the faster you can support exciting new line of business opportunities. With such a clear path to success, the time to start is now.

To learn more about putting the Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, 8400 Switch Series and ArubaOS-CX to work for your enterprise, access all the details by visiting http://www.arubanetworks.com/8400/